Well, if you want to be able to cook things that are varied, master one thing that can be adapted to many. I would recommend an alfredo sauce or a mornay sauce. With either of those you can add garlic, or tarragon or parmasean cheese and you have an entirely different flavor. Use it with pasta and chicken, orwith just noodles and veggies or shrimp. Master the sauce, the rest is easy.

well, southern food tends to be fried. It is not really versatile but is more "stick to the ribs comfort food". I would learn a few sauces. You can combine them in different ways. If you want comfort food, casseroles are easy to make and hard to make wrong.

What Guys Said 5

I love to cook. I've been experimenting and cooking for fun since I was a teenager and now that I live with my girlfriend, I'm usually the one who works the kitchen ;-). Because I like to cook many different things and try out new stuff, I don't really have one favorite dish. My favorite dishes always change again, every couple of months. But I do have a few dishes that I particularly like. At the moment, I really enjoy cooking these 3 dishes:1. The first one is called "Donburi". It is a Japanese dish that I discovered on a trip to Japan but changed it a little to my liking. It's a pretty easy but absolutely amazingly tasting dish (if you are into Asian/Japanese cuisine ;-)). First, I cook Sushi rice. While the rice is cooking, I cut Avocado and fresh Salmon, Tuna or Kingfish (or a mix of those). It's important that the fish is very fresh because it's gonna stay raw. Once the rice is done cooking, I treat it with some sushi vinegar. Then, I take a bowl and gently make layers of rice and Avocado and the raw fish. Because the rice is very hot, it cooks the fish just a tad on the outside but keeps it raw inside. Once the bowl is full, I top it off with a raw or poached egg (depending on what I feel like) and a quick drizzle of soy sauce. Yumm! ;-)2. The second dish is by far the most time consuming out of these three. First I cut fresh tomatoes, yellow paprikas, garlic, ginger, chilis, shallots and plums (kiwi also work well). Then I put them all in a big bowl and put some more tomato sauce on top (or "sugo", as the Italians say), to make it a little more liquidsh. Finally, I add in curry powder, a little bit of cardamom, salt and pepper. Then, I put stripes of chicken breast in there and let them get soaked with all the veggies. After one hour, I put everything into a big pan and fried it on a low heat for 30-40 minutes. 10 minutes before it's done I pour in some coconut milk and 2 minutes before it's done I add vanilla extract. The sweetness of the vanilla, coconut and plum goes really well together with the spiciness of the chilis and the ginger. The curry gives it some more exotic edge. On the side I usually cook coconut rice Jamie Oliver style. I take basmati rice and cook it in a mix of coconut milk and water. When it's done, I pour some lime juice over it. Et voilà :-).3. My third favorite dish at the moment is French crêpe with chocolate spread or jam. I like them better than American pancakes because they're so thin and delicate.

Yeah I feel ya. I love cooking too. That's why I asked this question, to get ideas for stuff to try but your dishes sound a little to advance for me. My most complicated dish I ever made was chicken fried steak. With the gravy

Yeah, kind of. You need to wait for the right texture each time you mix before adding anything else. It usually means no grains and no bubbles, unless it's the last stretch where you add bread crumbs, which will of course generate grains, but nothing to worry about.